Hi firstly i`m a new member so i`d like to say hello my name is lee and i`m happy to be here , sorry to jump straight in with information requests but i`m itching to know what this guitar is , Its a straten club 40 acoustic as far as i can see its from the 1940`s , the scratch plate is missing its been stripped down to the bare wood and it has some frets missing , i`ve paid £50 for this guitar i just fell for it when i saw it , its very rough and tatty but its a lovely old guitar , i was wondering if anyone knew the value of these guitars as i cant find any others for sale anywhere for comparison , thanks in advance for any info. lee..

It looks like they may only have been made for a relatively short time in the second phase of Straten Guitars.

When I saw the photo of a Club 40 on the above link (if it is correct) it reminded me of another guitar I had just read about recently. It turns out that I was thinking of a Hofner guitar from Gordon's Hofner Guitar History. The Hofner President from the late 1950's pictured in the book looks very similar with a near identical compensator.

That said I could have saved myself some time by reading the link in full, because after checking back to Gordon's book, I went back to the link and saw that it goes on to explain that there was a close relationship between Straten, Selmer UK and Hofner.

Hi roger thanks for the reply and info, i`d found a similar page with the selmer/straten history linked to the vintage hofner website. I see what you mean about the hofner president being very similar , my dad still has one of these guitars with a home repair job done on the neck apparently its a common fault with the president that the neck becomes loose maybe its because the neck floated above the soundboard of the guitar it was only attached via a dove joint to the heel so there was not alot of the neck actually connected to the sound box.Still struggling to find any info on value of these club 40`s , not that i`m looking to sell it , its just another piece of the puzzle.